1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a container, particularly for food and beverages, which can be selectively used as cooler or a warmer. More particularly, the present invention relates to a portable container which can be oriented with its lid or door facing up as a top opening ice chest or which can be stood up on an end as a mini-refrigerator or mini-warming oven with a front opening door and which, in order to accommodate such various orientations and alternate heating or cooling utilities, includes a particularly unique air ducting system, door disposition, lifting handles and/or door closing latch.
2. Description of the Art
Coolers are typically in the form of an insulated container which has walls upstanding from a base to define a top opening to which a removable cover is mounted. Thus, such coolers are typically rectangular with two sidewalls and two end walls, and have a pivotal handle assembly mounted to each end wall for carrying the cooler. As such, conventional coolers are intended to be disposed solely on the bottom or back wall and the lid, whether or not hinged along one edge, is simply interlocked with the container by a friction fit and/or by engagement with pivotally mounted locking carrying handles which selective engage and hold the lid on the container.
Typically coolers of the type described above are used as ice chests. Thus, when the food and/or beverages are to be kept cool, they are placed in the container and ice is added to the container to maintain the food cool. Such ice chests have a number of disadvantages. For example, as the ice melts, water will be present in the base of the container and must be periodically removed. Often, outlet ports are provided in such coolers to allow the melted ice to be drained. Still, for the most part, only hermetically sealed containers can be placed within the container if water damage is to be avoided. Further, to keep the contents cool for an extended period, ice must be repeatedly added.
Furthermore, because ice is required to maintain the food and beverages cool, only a relatively small amount of food can actually be stored within a cooler of a given size and the weight of the cooler is significantly increased by the presence of the ice.
It has recently been proposed to incorporate within a cooler type container a cooling system so that when the container is coupled to a power source, food and beverages within the cooler will be automatically cooled. With such automatic cooling, there is no need for ice and thus the container can hold more food and beverages than conventional ice chests of comparable size. The thermoelectric technology which allows a cooling system to be incorporated in a cooler was developed by NASA and eliminates the need for bulky compressors and piping. Furthermore, as an alternative to cooling, such newly developed systems can be used to warm foods by reversing the insertion of the plug to the system. Because such alternative cooling/heating systems are known a detailed disclosure of the heating/cooling system is omitted herein.
With the advent of positive cooling or warming within a portable container, there has been a desire to provide portable food containers which can be used both in a conventional ice chest orientation with the lid or door on top and in an end up orientation as a "college dorm room", hotel, or office refrigerator/warming oven with a front opening door.
The original portable thermoelectric coolers were introduced in the 1980's. One such unit (application Ser. No. 07/387,891, filed Jul. 31, 1989) included a sink and very small fan that would agitate the air across the aluminum fins of the sink to distribute the air more rapidly than convection alone. By reversing the polarity by reversing the plug on 12 V DC the heat pump would reverse itself, as noted above. That prior heater/cooler had a positive latch which latched the lid to the main body of the container by rotating an element mounted to the main body to engage a protruding element on the lid. The handles provided on that container were U-shaped and were pivotally mounted at the ends of the legs of the U so as to hang freely at either end of the container. A support base was provided for that system so that it could be mounted up on its end without interfering with opening and closing of the lid or door and so that the exteriorly mounted handle would not unbalance the container when so oriented. While the above-described unit has advantages, that is not to say the improvement thereof is not possible.